Marc Munroe Dion: Welcome home! Have a beer

Joe Six Pack is back! “Joe Six Pack,” that lovely, dismissive term for working men (and women) has risen to the top of public speech with all the subtlety of a malt liquor belch.

Marc Munroe Dion

Joe Six Pack is back!

“Joe Six Pack,” that lovely, dismissive term for working men (and women) has risen to the top of public speech with all the subtlety of a malt liquor belch.

And why not? It’s a strip club, all you can eat, dirty words on your T-shirt, pro wrestling, dollar store country now, ain’t it? It’s a land of beer-swilling, beer-smelling, beer-belching, beer-logo-hat-wearing, beer-commercial-fun-havin’ dudes and dudettes country, ain’t it? Subtlety is for losers.

Pop a cold one. Lift a frosty. Hell, if the only beer ya got is warm, crack one of those bad boys and spray your buddies with the foam.

Good times, bro. Good times.

If you’re writing a speech, no doubt “Joe Six Pack” sounds like an awfully good way to describe people who (gasp) don’t know a saucy little merlot from a can of motor oil.

Joe Six Pack, by the way, has a case of motor oil on the back seat of the 12-year-old pick-up truck he can’t afford to replace because he can’t get a good job and he can’t get a car loan because the merlot-sippers who run the economy are sleazy, greedy bums.

What about Joe Six Pack who used to be Joe Draft Beer? He quit going to bars and drinking draft because he can’t afford it because he hasn’t had a raise in two years. You know him? I do.

What about Joe 12-pack? You know Joe 12-pack? Lost his job a year ago and he’s starting to drink a little too much. He used to be Joe Six Pack, but a six-pack don’t cut it when you’re scared you’ll never work again. His wife’s scared, too. Scared he’ll crawl into the 12-pack and never come out.

You know Jane One Beer? She’s got three kids, no husband and two jobs. She pays her niece 10 bucks to baby-sit while she works her night job. She comes home and, after her sister leaves, she sits at the kitchen table, sipping a beer and counting $24 in tip money from her waitress job. She makes $9 an hour on her day job and she owes the gas company $300. You know her?

You know Joe 30-pack? He’s not even looking for work anymore. He ran the same machine in the same corner of the same factory for 25 years and the factory closed two weeks after he turned 58. His wife’s gone, but he’s holding on tight to the 30-pack.

You know Jack Sleeps Under The Overpass? Nice guy, but he acts crazy sometimes. You know Joanne the Hooker? No 30-pack for her, but plenty of track marks on her skinny arms.

Some of the Joes and Johns and Jacks and Janes and Joannes would have lost their way in any economy, but some wouldn’t have. Some of them would have been alright if life had been just a little easier. Just a little. Some got through five or six life disasters and then tripped over the seventh and couldn’t get up again.

Jack Sleeps Under the Overpass was wounded in Vietnam. Joanne the Hooker has a son in the 82nd Airborne. When Joe 30-pack had a job, he gave to the United Way. Jane One Beer wants nice things, she really does, but she’s working two jobs and she’s got three kids and almost nothing in her life is nice these days.

Joe Six Pack, my achin’ back. The working class isn’t a comedy skit being put on for the benefit of do-nothings with master’s degrees.

In recent week, Joe the Plumber has joined Joe Six Pack as a stereotype brought to life by some speech writer who has no reason in hell to know any better.

A cardboard cutout of Joe the Plumber ain’t the issue. Joe Laid-Off Factory Worker is the issue. Joan Coming Back From Iraq is the issue because she can’t find a job. Spend a year in Iraq, come home and beg for part-time waitress work. Welcome home, Joanie! Have a beer!
We’re not zoo animals. We’re working people.

And you know something else?

Not all of our men are named “Joe.”

In case you didn’t know.

Marc Munroe Dion is a reporter for The Herald News. E-mail him at mdion@heraldnews.com.